What is Hospice Care? What is Palliative Care? Will you need these services?

Horizon Care Services can coordinate hospice and palliative care for you.

What is Palliative Care?

Palliative Care is the medical process that focuses on relieving pain, stress, and other debilitating symptoms of a serious illness rather than the curative process of traditional care. Palliative care may not necessarily replace traditional care but may be added to compliment it. There is not a one-size-fit all approach to palliative care. The care is customized to fit individual needs. The goal of palliative care is to relieve suffering and provide the best quality of life for patients and their loved ones.

What is Hospice Care?

Hospice care is an attitude of service more than a place. Hospice care always provides palliative care not curative medicine. Hospice is for terminally ill patients who have a life expectancy of less than six months. Hospice care can be provided in one’s home, hospice house, hospice care center, assisted living facility, or nursing home. Hospices in Florida are not all alike. They are independently owned agencies with varying services and philosophies.

Hospice care focuses on the patient and the family and is provided by a team of professionals, which may include the primary care doctor, nurses, a social worker, nursing aides, home health aides, bereavement counselor, trained volunteers, a chaplain, and other complimentary medicine practitioners such massage therapists and nutritionists. The hospice care team develops a personalized care plan that considers numerous end-of-life issues.

Where Will Hospice Care be Provided?

Hospice Care at Home: Individuals who prefer to receive hospice care in their own homes will be visited by the care team where they live. All services and medical equipment needed will be delivered and administered in the comfort of one’s own home. The hospice team works with the family members who are providing full-time care.

• Hospice House: The hospice house is a home away from home for those who do not have a full-time caregiver. These patients can spend their last weeks or months of life in the comfort of a hospice house. The hospice house is decorated to feel like a home environment yet equipped with the necessary medical services and equipment.
• Hospice Care Center: A hospice care center provides care for individuals with complicated symptoms or pain that require constant medical supervision. The hospice care center is an alternative to a hospital.
• Assisted Living or Nursing Home: When an individual resides in an assisted living facility or nursing home, the hospice care team works with the facility. While the facility staff provides the usual long-term care services, the hospice team manages the patient’s pain and the end-of-life concerns of the patient and family members.

Regardless of where hospice care is provided, Horizon Care Services can assist you in choosing a hospice agency and coordinating needed services.